I used to work in a McDonald’s kitchen. We were experiencing a large number of new starters due to high turnover, mostly because the store manager was awful. It was 7 AM, and it was our last hour before the store picked up traffic.

Two of my friends/coworkers are wrapping up the morning setup when a new girl walks in. She sheepishly stands at the back and washes her hands while the manager introduces her.

Eventually, she is told to put a hair net on. We don’t see her for a while.

Me: “Where’s the new girl?”

Coworker: “I thought she was putting on a hair net and then coming back?” 

We both peek around the corner (the kitchen was an ‘L’ shape), and we see the new girl, looking flustered, with about thirty hair nets on her head.

Coworker: “Uh… [New Girl], what are you doing?”

New Girl: “These things take forever to put on! How do you all do this?!”

Coworker: “Because we only wear one?”

New Girl: “Huh?”

The new girl, in her first-day nerves, saw the hair net pack and didn’t realize it was a pack of sixty. She thought it was just one ‘set’ and was trying to pull all of them over her head. She had long hair and thought it required some weird patchwork quilt of hair nets to hold it all in.

Me: “No, no, like this.”

I remove my single hair net, toss it in the trash, take a fresh single hair net, and pull it over my head, tucking in all my hair at the back.

Me: “See, just the one required.”

New Girl: “I knew I had to be doing something wrong!”

We all laughed, and then we showed her how to work her station, frying the hash browns.

Coworker: “Now these you CAN all fry at once. Don’t fry one at a time.”

New Girl: “D*** it, I’ve been here an hour, and I already have a ‘thing’.”

She later went on to be fairly good at her job!

I’ve gone down to my local chippie (fish and chips) takeaway and ordered the usual. Another guy is there, waiting for his chips and battered sausage. 

The shop is run by a Hong Kong family. The ones my age and younger were all born here and all sound local. They have some older workers who are from Hong Kong and have stronger accents.

One time, they had their granddad visiting, and he was trying to help out and practise his English at the same time by calling out the orders:

Chippie Granddad: “One chips and b*stard sausage!”

Customer: “Uh… I think… maybe… that’s me?”

Chippie Granddad: “Only two of you! One get fish and chips! One get chips and b*stard sausage! Are you fish or b*stard?!”

Customer: “I’m… uh… battered.”

Chippie Granddad: “Then hurry up and take order! Too slow!”

He took his order, and poor Granddad didn’t know why we were both laughing so hard. I explained it to his grandson (someone I was friendly with, as a regular), and he taught his granddad the proper pronunciation through tears of laughter.

Our manager is a jerk for many reasons, but s*** like this is one of them. A coworker has just clocked in before the lunch rush.

Manager: “Hey [Coworker], you can clock out early today. Don’t stay past five.”

Coworker: “But I’m scheduled until eight.”

Manager: “Yeah, but I’m being nice and saying you can leave early.”

Coworker: “My husband isn’t picking me up until eight. I’ll just work my hours, thanks.”

Manager: “But I don’t want you to—”

Coworker: “[Manager], don’t pretend you’re being nice. We’ve got the college football rush coming, so you need me, but you also know that if I work past five, then I hit overtime hours for the week. That sounds like you made a scheduling problem; therefore, it is not mine. I’m finishing my hours.”

The manager stutters for a second, unaware and not expecting that we lowly peons have brains and could easily figure out what he’s really playing at.

Manager: “Well, for talking back at me like that and making false accusations, you can leave now.”

Coworker: “You’re kicking me out just before the lunch rush? Seriously?”

Me: “[Manager], please don’t. We need her.”

Manager: *To coworker.* “Get out! Come back tomorrow, and we can talk about your attitude.”

My coworker turns around and walks out, but says to the manager as she leaves:

Coworker: “You… will never have hemorrhoids!”

The manager looks confused, and then looks at me.

Me: “She said you’re a perfect a**hole.”

The lunch rush was abysmal. We all went over the manager’s head to talk to the regional manager. A week later, we all had as much overtime as was needed, but the manager had zero hours… because he was fired.

I work at the drive-thru for a burger place. Our menu up front has a speaker that allows us to take the customer’s order there to speed things up. A customer has given me a complicated meal combo order with lots of substitutions.

Me: “Okay, that’s [combo meal] but hold the onions, burger sauce on the side, unsalted fries, and a milkshake upgrade on the drink?”

Customer: “Yeah. For my next meal, I want…”

Cue another complicated combo meal with more substitutions, plus extra sides with their own substitutions. I read this meal back to her also.

Customer: “Yeah, cool. Okay, for my next meal, I want—”

Me: “—Ma’am, how many meals are you planning to order?”

Customer: “Twelve. So, I want—”

Me: “—Ma’am, we kindly ask our customers who have large or more complicated orders to please order inside the store. Our drive-thru lane is single-lane, and we have a line building up.”

Customer: “Where does it say that?”

Me: “At the bottom of the menu you’re ordering from.”

Customer: “Huh. Oh yeah. Anyway, it says you “kindly ask”, so it doesn’t sound like you’re enforcing it. So anyway, for my next meal, I want…”

Yup. She put in the order for all twelve meals, all with heavy modifications, totally ignoring the line building up behind her. My manager and another guy had to go outside and start taking the orders of the other drivers with a clipboard to make sure they weren’t sitting there for fifteen minutes with nothing happening.

Annoyingly, this woman came back at the same time a week later, with yet another complicated order, this time fourteen sandwiches. She was likely ordering for an office or workplace and gave no concern at all for ours.

We figured she would be back again a week later, and we were right. This time before she starts ordering:

Me: “Ma’am, how many meals will you be ordering this time?”

Customer: “Thirteen. I want a—”

Me: “—Ma’am, we kindly require that large orders such as yours be made inside the store so as not to clog up the drive-thru.”

Customer: “Yeah, we had this discussion already. I want—”

Me: “—Ma’am. We kindly require, not ask.”

Customer: “Your menu doesn’t say that.”

Me: “Are you sure?”

Customer: “Yeah, it says you kindly ask—”

She stops mid-sentence. She’s just noticed that we printed out an update to that part of the menu and have taped it over the “kindly ask” bit. She pauses but regains her composure.

Customer: “Looks like you did that just because of me.”

Me: “It kinda does, doesn’t it?”

Customer: “Well I’m here now, so I want—”

Me: “—Ma’am. We kindly require, not ask. You need to come inside to make an order the size of yours.”

The sound of silence fills the speaker airwaves, and then she revs her engine aggressively before pushing forward and around the store. She parks up, storms in, and orders angrily, but hey, she still orders inside, so we take that as a win.

I’m working at a Tex-Mex fast food place. It’s lunchtime, and we have a long line.

Customer: “I want two tacos, no grease.”

Me: “So that’s an empty corn tortilla? No fillings?”

Customer: “What?! No! I want the beef!”

Me: “Then it’ll come with grease.”

Customer: “Well, can’t you just try your best?”

Me: “Sure.”

I get her two beef tacos, making no attempt to remove any of the usual grease. She just looks at them.

Me: “That’s the best you’re going to get.”

She pays and takes her tacos to a table in the corner. She takes out each individual piece of minced beef and presses it between some napkins. She does this for every… single… piece.

She only starts eating it a full half an hour later, and then brings the dried-out tacos back up to the counter and complains:

Customer: “These are cold…” 

I wanted to reward her perseverance by placing the tacos under a heater for a minute, but we’re not allowed to take food back from the customer. Still, it’s crazy to think she thought we’d have time to do that for a $7 order in the middle of a lunch rush…